


He Talks In His Sleep

by knaval



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Beta Derek, Beta Derek Hale, Derek Hale is Bad at Feelings, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski Feels, Derek-centric, Everyone Is Alive, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, POV Derek, POV Stiles, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Sleep, Sleep Sex, Sleep talking, Sleepiness, Sleeping Together, Sleeptalking, Sleepy Boys, Sleepy Cuddles, Sleepy Derek, Sleepy Kisses, Sleepy Sex, Sleepy Stiles, Stiles Feels, Stiles is a Little Shit, creepy derek, sleep talk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 18:43:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4447478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knaval/pseuds/knaval
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles talks in his sleep. It makes sense to Derek, because Stiles never shuts up in the daytime, so why would he stop when he was asleep?</p>
<p>Ooooooooooooooooor how Derek and Stiles get into the habit of sleeping together ;)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stiles Talks in His Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> since the last time this was posted people had a little trouble with the format, so here it all together. 
> 
> plus a BONUS CHAPTER that is very cute if i do say so myself

Stiles Stilinski talks in his sleep.

At first, Derek dismisses it. It pisses him off a little, but it makes sense to him. Stiles never stops talking, so why wouldn't he continue talking in his sleep? It's not like Derek can go in there and duct tape Stiles' mouth shut, Stiles doesn't even know he's on the roof. The Sheriff's house might be the safest place in Beacon Hills for him-- no one knows he's there, and he's unlikely to go there in the first place. Besides, anyone chasing or hunting him would have to deal with the Sheriff. So outside he stayed, and with the wall between him and Stiles, he tried not to listen to it.

Until the night it won't stop raining. He stays out in the wet until he sees a squirrel in a tree not too much higher up than he get struck by lightning. He slips inside before he realizes it, making his way in the dark.

The room smells so strongly of Stiles and stale food it nearly sends him back outside. But he's tired, soaked and bleeding, and despite the smell it's warm and inviting.

He reaches for a blanket off the bed, freezing as Stiles roles over and and grunts, "Mom?" He's frozen until Stiles shifts again, mumbling, "Mom, don't go. You don't have to go yet."

Derek goes to the chair without the blanket, sleeping lightly there, and he's gone before Stiles wakes up.

The next night it's still raining, but there's a blanket folded up on the chair for him. Derek realizes the room must have smelled of him when he left, even enough for a human to perceive.  The night after that it doesn't rain much, but the window is unlocked.

It's a wordless communication between the two of them over the next few weeks. Stiles leaving out a pillow, even a sleeping bag, Derek folding it up and locking the window before he leaves. He can hardly ignore Stiles' unconscious muttering inside though. It's often about his mother, repeating things he must have said to her so often the words fall from his mouth without a thought. "I miss you", "get better soon", "we need you", and  "I'll stay here tonight".

Sometimes he mutters about Scott, like he's dreaming that they're getting in trouble again. He sighs in rehearsed promises that they won't get in trouble, "swear it's legit", "I promise this is the last time", "Stop being a chicken", "what's the worst thing that could happen". Derek snorts at that last one.

Between mumbles of schemes and soundbites of persuasion he throws in a caring question, "Didja 'member your inhaler?" He mumbles that one night and Derek is struck by the question, aware of how his heart seems to skip in some form of empathetic gratitude for Scott. Derek's just picked up the blanket left out for him when Stiles mumbles the concerns of the inhaler to dream-Scott, followed up by a "Dn'worry buddy, I gotcha a spare," and Derek realizes he's never thanked Stiles for any of this. He spots an old spare inhaler on the desk, still there even though Scott's been a werewolf for a couple months now.

He stares, transfixed for a moment. There's an eternal gratefulness that holds him, grateful for how there are still kind people in the world. It's dark but the the crescent moonlight pours in through the window, drawing sharp shadows over Stiles' face and contouring his face in angles and plane, skin awash with pale light and punctuated by moles that hide at the corners of the angles of his face. He looks older, Derek realizes, than when he first met and threatened him. His hair has grown out some and he's more of a man than the child Derek had treated him as. The moment ends when Stiles whines with a pout to dream-Scott, "Allison's stealing you."

Derek watches as he continues on dreaming of his friends, mumbling aloud the whole time. He compliments Lydia even in his sleep, often followed by a sigh, and "Not like you notice me."  Sometimes there's even a high pitched "Ericaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" where he sounds a little scared, a panicked, "Boyd your girlfriend's out to kill me", and other times a resentful, "Jackson's such an asshole. And he's stupid. He doesn't even know what day it is." Stiles giggles to himself because apparently it's a lot funnier in his dreams.

It kind of bugs Derek when he realizes he doesn't know the date either; he's lost track of that for ages. He searches through the room for a calender, resting when he finds out its a Tuesday. When he sits down again, he wonders why it bothered him so much, but he's unable to come up with an answer.

One night he hears his name. He thinks Stiles is awake, looking up. Stiles is asleep, strewn over his bed. His face twitches and the dream turns again before he can finish the thought, muttering net, "I'll show you my lacrosse stick." Derek snorts at that and forces himself to sleep before he has to listen to another one of Stiles' fairly pornographic dreams. It's not so much because it's too awkward to sleep next to him during those dreams, but the cheesy dialogue once made him laugh so hard he woke the Sheriff.

Somehow he feels more comfortable around Stiles when he's asleep than when he's awake. It's almost like he's a different person.

Most days he's not even chased anymore, he just wants to get in out of the cold, the wind, and the rain. He suspects he also goes because he's grown used to Stiles' sleeptalking, because now he's used to someone being there when he wakes, because he can't fall asleep when Stiles isn't there. His bed in the burnt shell of the Hale house is too wide and too empty. He spends less and less time there, one day noticing that he's no longer used to the linger smell of smoke that still haunts the halls. He had never realized before how suffocating it was, that he had been drowning himself in it by not leaving more often.

Once he forgets a bloody shirt there, leaving a note that he's borrowing one of Stiles (plainer) tees. A few nights later when he needs to stay again, its folded up by the window, stainless. It smells like Stiles.

One night he turns up to find Stiles turned in his bed, sleeping shortways instead of longways, his long legs hanging over the edge as he fails to curl up enough. A barrier of pillows down the middle separates the bed into two halves. It takes Derek a few nights to realize, and another two to give in to sharing the bed. Sleeping shortways lasts barely a night. Derek picks Stiles up and refits him on the side against the wall, and remakes the pillow barrier. He takes the side further from the, closer to the window. There's not much wiggle room sideways, but his feet fit onto the bed and that's what he cares about more. Soon enough Derek can lay claim to a specific pillow and side of the bed, shoving Stiles over or prying the pillow from him in the middle of the night.

The barrier lasts a little less than a week, because Derek quickly gets used to using more than one pillow and Stiles always rolls over it anyway.

At first Stiles stays curled up against the wall and Derek hangs on the edge of the bed, but gradually they grow more accustomed to each other being there, easier with being so close. Somehow, eventually, Derek discovers Stiles not only talks in his sleep, but clings as well, often hooking a leg over Derek's. Somehow he barely notices the clinging, only when he has to peel Stiles off of him in the morning.  So he sighs and he lets him.

Until he has a dream about Stiles. The next night he puts the pillow barrier back up.


	2. Derek Talks in His Sleep

 

Derek talks in his sleep.

 

It's been a few weeks since Derek started taking refuge for the night on Stiles' floor, chair etc, and few week more since Stiles (awkwardly) offered to let him share the bed. "No use having you grumpier because the floor is a bitch to sleep on," he insisted under his breath, when Derek wasn't there. There was a maybe-chance of Derek hearing him anyway he supposed, but he wasn't going to say it to his face.

 

But he knew the thing about the floor because when he and Scott had sleepovers as kids and had to share the bed, he always ended up on the floor because Scott kicks and doesn't share the blankets. So as a precaution Stiles builds the pillow barrier and sets aside a blanket for Derek. His worries about freezing from a lack of blankets are dashed when the pillow wall crumbles in a matter of days and Derek nuzzles his way under Stiles' blanket, rolling over onto him or just pulling Stiles closer in the middle of the night. Stiles assumes the cuddling is a pack thing, and doesn't mention it to Derek.

The season's slipped back into summery spring and some nights are too warm to sleep under that particular furnace. It could be just a precaution against the heat to keep them seperate.

It's late one night when he hears Derek climb in through the window. Stiles doesn't bother turning around from his desk - he knows its Derek, and he has a test in chemistry to study for. Besides, they've never bothered with formalities (or any spoken communication, come to think of it) and Stiles is determinded to ace the test despite Harris being an ass and barely teaching the chapter.

Derek doesn't say a word at seeing him up this late, but promptly crashes on the bed. Stiles spares him a glance. Dude took the side further from the wall, _knowing_ Stiles asked him not to do that because Stiles is going to have to climb over him to get to his side. Stiles huffs a few choice phrases about certain sourwolves  being too lazy to move their ass a foot and a half further like he had asked him to (okay not so much 'asked' as 'tried to move him and failed').  Derek interrupts his rant with something between a growl and a snore.

"Shut up," he snarls, yawning into a murmur, "Or I'll..."

"Rip my throat out with your teeth, yea yea, got it." Derek looks so tired he doubts he could manage to even do more damage than a hickey. Stiles may have said that aloud as well, but Derek doesn't answer so he must not have heard. Stiles assumes he's fallen right asleep.

It's another hour later and Stiles is trying to memorize the outer rings of electrons as the effect of the second Adderall he had before dinner are just about worn off, when he hears Derek.

"Stiles."

"Mm-hmm," he hummed, biting on his pencil as he searched the desk for his calculartor.

"Stile."

"Derek," he answered, shuffling through some papers. He just had the damn thing too.

"Stiles."

"Yeah, what's u-"

"Stiiiiiles."

He turns around quickly, slamming the book shut. Derek's still asleep. But he's talking.  Stiles wonders briefly if he's tired enough to hear things . Maybe. But then Derek roles over onto his back, murmuring, " _Stiles_."

He's frozen for a second because a) he's never seen Derek smile like some kind of idiot before, and b), he's never heard anyone say his name with that look on their face.  It's have somewhat of an immidiate effect on everything below the belt. Derek's not even bothered to get under the covers; his shirt riding up high and his hand riding low on his stomach. Stiles licks his lips and curses himself for it. Derek's hand shifts on his stomach with every breath, fingers curling in and out of a trail of dark hairs disappearing behind-

Oh god.

Stiles turns red and immediately looks away, only to be drawn back in by Derek's low growl, "Stiiiiles."

Stiles swallows back apprehension, sneaking a glance to see the tips of  Derek's fingers slipping below denim, stopped abruptly by his belt. Derek snuffles out a dissatisfied growl in his sleep, his other hand sliding forward to paw at himself through his jeans. Stiles watches, horrified, hypnotized, barely thinking to stop himself before he's stroking at his own erection, sucking in the air in carefully so Derek doesn't wake up. He bets Derek would make good on that last threat.

He has to run to the bathroom the next time Derek calls out his name.


	3. The Sheriff Talks in His Sleep

_The Sheriff_ talks in his sleep. It catches Derek off guard one night when he comes in through the window. Most often the Sheriff snores like a lawnmower, and most other nights he's working late. So often Derek hangs on Stiles' sleepy words that he barely notices it.

"S'a good kid. But m'worried 'bout'm. actin' strange," he mumbled one night, and it strikes Derek as odd. He couldn't have meant anyone other than Stiles, but then who could he have been mumbling about? Stiles had been completely normal, or as normal as per Stiles' usual behavior. Derek shook the thought off - nothing had changed since he had put the pillows back between them. He had been overly conscious about it at first, worrying that Stiles would bug him about it. He was ever grateful Stiles hadn't mentioned anything to him about the growing distance he was putting between them, for a number of reasons. Most of them had to do with the fact that his dreams had been getting worse.

It was getting more and more difficult to distinguish reality from his dreams of late, not when he fell asleep looking at Stiles and listening to his breathy mumbles, to slip into a dream where Stiles was flushed in sweaty red shades, eyes fluttering in pleasure, and each time they shut in an expression of ecstasy his mouth opened in some new sound. Dreams where they rolled and touched and rolled again on a bed that didn't seem to have any edges - it never needed any, for in his dreams they had no reason to separate and cling to edges, to push as far away from each other as they could get.

Yet despite all the distance he was putting between them, the separate sides of the bed, staying fewer nights, getting in later and leaving earlier, Stiles was taking the tiny gestures well.

Really well, actually.

So well it disturbed him a little. Some traitorous, unbidden thought of his suggested that if anything he would have hoped that Stiles would take the distance badly, at least, not in the way he was currently. That the meager means of separation wouldn't have gone unnoticed, that he would at least react to it and try to cross those small distances.

Derek hated to admit it to himself, but he was traitorously hoping that Stiles would have done something, just to indicate he liked him back. Derek shook himself, telling himself not to confuse those dreams with reality.

But Stiles didn't do anything to imply anything was amiss. In fact, he seemed to revel in the space. Stiles seemed to sidle up to him every chance in the day time, standing a little too close to him at the pack meetings, cracking jokes to him out of the corner of his mouth, leaning his shoulder against Derek's, walking alongside him, rambling, riding shotgun in Derek's car when he wasn't sure he even offered him a ride. Even when Derek pushed him away in the daytime, telling him to go play lacrosse with Scott or when Derek insisted he talk to Deaton alone, Stiles left with the widest smile. It was unfathomable.

On the offhand chances Stiles spotted him in public, at the grocery store or walking home, Stiles waved him over until he gave up and jogged over himself. Lately he was skipping the waving part. Derek was supremely grateful that Stiles had human hearing so he couldn't hear his heartbeat stutterwhenever he caught sight of Stiles unexpectedly. But he could probably see the flush he felt on his neck and ears while he glared at Stiles, willing the pinkess to go away. He tried not to look at Stiles, pretending he wasn't there but he was right there, so far into Derek's personal space that ignoring him was near impossible. When he couldn't avoid him in the day he tried to avoid him more often at night. Derek went a whole week without stoping by Stiles' place (though he kept seeing him in the daytime. Wasn't Stiles supposed to have school or something that would keep him away from him then?) but he wandered back on habit one night and fell asleep much faster than he thought. He had almost forgotten to put up the pillow wall. It didn't help that the sheets were soft and Stiles left little things out for him,

Nor that no matter how early Derek rose nowadays, there was a mug of coffee waiting for him on Stiles' desk, sometimes a donut sitting on the side. He knew Stiles was just giving it to him so the Sheriff wouldn't eat it, but he was starting to look forward to it. He chastised himself about it, knowing it was foolish to count on the morning gesture as tiny rays of a hope he was conflicted about wanting to hold onto, but there was that one morning he woke as early as he could, seeing Stiles leaving the coffee on his desk. Still dazed and confused in slipping out of a dream into reality, his guard was down and he smiled sleepily at the sight of Stiles. He tried to be angry at himself for the slip of obvious affection, but it was hard because he couldn't stop thinking of how Stiles had brightened seconds after. It took many hours after that for Derek to convince himself that the look had been a look of relief, particular "Hey you're awake now. Get out of here so I don't have to worry about my dad finding a werewolf fugitive in my bed."

Still, there were _two_ donuts the next morning. Granted, the strawberry one had a bite taken out of it. And if Derek had to school his face into nonchalance while he ate around the bite with more care than necessary, having to glare excessively at the donut in order to stop himself from grinning before he finished it, well then at least Stiles didn't know that.

"Dude I haven't seen you act like this since before you stopped pining after Lydia Martin," Derek overhead Scott say to Stiles one day, an aisle away from him at the grocery store. Peeking through the bleachers, Derek saw Stiles shrug sheepishly instead of answer, to which Scott hissed, "Dude, you're not having a relapse of that, are you? You are! You totally are, that's your 'Lydia Martin' face-!"

That was all Derek needed to hear to chalk Stiles' weird behavior up to his infatuation with Lydia before he left quickly, making sure Stiles didn't see him. It made him feel oddly numb where it should have been relaxing to know that Stiles didn't suspect Derek's feeling at all. 


	4. Chapter 4

Derek only talks in his sleep. At least, that’s how it seems tonight.

Stiles realizes how hard it is to start, much less have a conversation with Derek. He only realizes now how most of their conscious conversations start with Derek threatening him and Stiles responding from there. He doesn't even know how to talk normally to the guy.

When Derek talks in his sleep, Stiles doesn’t try to hold a conversation with him because that wakes him up and makes things awkward. But he does slip a little closer, resting his head on Derek’s shoulder, and give little breaths tinted with a hint of voice, like a sigh or a moan to acknowledge he’s heard. Everything he’s not sure how to say fits into those little breaths, and Derek’s so much more of a conversationalist when he’s asleep. Funny how those sounds never wake him up.

But it all started about five minutes ago. Or several months ago when he started letting Derek use his bed. Or even a few years back when Derek glared at him in the woods.

But the point is, Stiles doesn’t know when or how or why it began, he just knows he’s caught up in the middle of something he can’t manage to say, and something Derek can’t process except on a subconscious level.

With the pillow barrier up, Stiles’ nightmares seem to occur more often, and more vivid. He doesn’t remember them being this horrible before Derek, (then again it may have been all the recent stress caused by various existence of supernatural creatures) but he’s not sure how he’s going to deal with them without him. Because somewhere he knows this won’t last forever.

Many nights more he finds himself getting around or under or over the wall, curling up against and clinging to Derek when he wakes from bad dreams. Some nights he sits up in the dark and returns to his side, constructing the pillows again. Other nights he waits, clinging a little longer in the dark, listening to Derek’s breath and feeling the press of his ribcage against Stiles’ cheek, the gentle, automatic motions Derek vaguely makes whenever his hands are touching Stiles’ face or have ended tangled up in his hair. (Stiles may have been putting off cutting it because he liked the feeling so much, and did not want a reason to end it prematurely.) He waits, pretending he hasn’t awoken, until the night is only dark and the dreams only vaguely haunt him, and he’s not quite sure what worried him awake anyway.

He thought once, idly, to himself on the edge of sleep, where he cannot be accountable for his thoughts, that he might not have to be afraid of monsters in the closet and under his bed, had there been one curled up beside him.

One night his dream seemed to hold onto him even as he woke – and Derek, he was awake, rousing him. Even with his eyes forced open in terror, all he saw was a great void, the shadows of his room no longer familiar and lazily waiting to trip him when he made his way around in the dark, but sinister and filled with ill intent. It touched everything, and there was no safety except under the covers.

And beside him.

He could barely hear Derek growling for him to wake up, but he could feel his grip on his shoulder shaking him awake like an invitation of open arms, which he bodily dove into. Derek was so much safer than any blanket he could hide under and feebly grope for warmth. Stiles cleaved to him, and he could feel Derek’s arms around him. He barely realized how out of joint his breathing was, the sweat on his back or how violently he was shaking. He only noticed the tremors when he felt Derek pull him closer, as if holding him tight enough could still his shaking.

His mind was blurry and his eyes were not adjusted to the dark, but gradually, he came aware of it all. At least, of Derek’s fingers, carding through his hair in slow, drawn out motions that matched his breath on Stiles’ neck, interrupted only as he hummed, “Shhhhhhhh,” a sound that dwindled out into comforting murmurs. Or the gentle movement of his thumb, back and forth in a calming way, until it fell lazily into relaxation.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Derek whispered to him, as Stiles buried his eyes against Derek’s shoulder. He did not have the words to tell him why it wasn’t okay, that there were many things, and they all were so terrible --

In a burst of motion his eyes were wet and he was biting down on Derek’s shoulder as easily as he would his own hand, to stop a sob from being wrenched from his throat. There was a slight delay in Derek’s motions, a pause in his breath where Stiles realized what he had done.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Derek repeated, biting back a croak of injury in his throat.

It was his first instinct to lick the bite. With his tongue he checked the bite; there was no blood, only tasting sweat and saliva and _Derek_ , scraping his teeth gently along over the rapidly fading teeth marks. It did not heal right away, and Stiles could not fathom why Derek wouldn’t heal, but after persistently licking the wound he felt him give way and let it heal under his tongue while he mouthed at the spot until there was nothing left.

He continued even after.

His tongue roamed an inch further at a time, taking in the taste of salty flesh, but his hands covered in all they could span, rolling into the sinew and feeling the firm shape in his hands much akin to how eyes greedily take in life brought to marble sculptures.

Groggy and his brain still a half asleep haze, he felt as if he were still in a dream. So often in dreams when he was vaguely aware of the lack of reality, he threw all care and critical thought to the wind; it never mattered there, where no consequences existed. No motive or want was ever questioned in his dreams, and neither here, Stiles decided without any input whatsoever from his brain, as he dragged his tongue up along Derek’s neck, to lap greedily under his jawline.

And Derek, _Derek_ , he was holding him all the tighter, his calming, hushing motions turning into grasping, groping movements, touching a little more of him each time. His breath was growing ragged, hot on Stile’s neck as he nuzzled into his shoulder. He rocked his hips against him, feeling his arousal start and brush against Derek’s.

His eyes were finally adjusting, he broke away to breath, holding Derek in his open mouthed gaze. All lines were crossed too long ago to care for them any longer, he thought. He touched Derek’s cheek, meaning to brush away that stricken look.

But then Derek threw him off like a heavy blanket in the middle of summer, pushing himself to the edge of the bed.

“Derek?” he tried to ask, timid in the dark, so suddenly feeling as if he were alone.

Derek did not move, lying stiffly on his side with his back to Stiles. Though the pillow wall had been knocked aside, the stony silence had replaced it, cold and ten feet high.

Minutes passed awake in the darkness. He could hear his father snoring down the hall, the ticking of a clock, a dog barking two neighborhoods over, Derek’s breath beside him.

And he can’t figure out for the life of him how to speak to Derek.


	5. Chapter 5

Nobody was talking. Then again, neither of them was asleep. That was probably why Stiles could only hear his father snoring down the hall. Aside from that, it was unearthly quiet.

“So, um,” Stiles began again, punctuating the slice a few moments later, only to be talked over by the quiet.

"So, um. We're both awake at the same time. Imagine that," Stiles begins _again_ , uncomfortably. He had no idea where to go with this, but he felt that if he didn’t keep talking the opportunity would be gone forever. But even he struggled to come up with something to say, and with every passing second it became harder to break the silence.

“So, uhmmm…” Stiles tried again, clearing his throat, this time forcing himself to continue, “Hey, Derek. Um, you still awake?”

Derek remained still, breathing slowly without a sound. He was totally faking, Stiles knew. Even if he would sleep again that night, after _that_ , he doubted if Derek could.

 _That_ being the most wonderful and confusing ten seconds of his entire life, and he wasn’t even fully awake for it. Damn it.

“Uh, Derek,” Stiles tried again after a moment, breaking it, taking that first step, testing the waters. Good progress. He just needed to keep going. “Derek. Dereeeeeeek. Der. Deeeer. Der-ek,” he said, flicking his tongue over his teeth as he enunciated it, and it became a mantra, a single thought played over and over again like a record spinning through the final groove. He felt like a newspaper printer, spitting out the same word over and over, but if he stops saying it, the silence will take over and

Of course if he doesn’t stop saying it he may well never think of anything else to say –which would be fine with him, he loves saying it. He could never say enough, never stretch the vowels out long enough to keep the word on his lips, to keeping it rolling on his tongue. Ever since the feelings started, saying Derek’s name was a secret, guilty pleasure. Whenever he said it, he brought it up carefully, trying to come off as if he didn’t want to be talking about Derek. He didn’t want anyone to think he wanted to be talking about Derek, even if he did. But saying it made his heart catch on something, and he could feel his mouth pull subtly upwards. Then Scott started giving him weird looks, and Stiles could see the gears working in his head to try to figure out why his heartbeat picked up every time he said Derek’s name. Eventually he texted Scott that it had to do with an incurable fear of Derek eavesdropping.

For a while he avoided the name, said it as little as possible. Any movie with an actor named “Derek” or a book with an author sharing the name or if it was mentioned in passing conversation, he avoided it, pretended he hadn’t heard or seen it. Because for the longest time he didn’t want to think about Derek, because he didn’t want to let himself fall any further than he already had.

But sometimes when he was alone, he said it too himself, just a mention to the wind. No one had to know. Once, he hadn’t known Derek was close enough to hear him, and seconds after he had said it, Derek was there, demanding to know what he wanted, and suspicious as to how Stiles had known that Derek was in the vicinity. Stiles came up with a bullshit response which the memory of still brought red to his cheeks, and often made him wish he could forget. He tried to remember it differently, to focus on other detail, but it did nothing to alleviate the embarrassment, and he could only hope that Derek didn’t remember it.

So he stretched out the vowels in every possibly combination and pitch, until he remembered how Derek said his name that way, whispered it over and over in a mumble until it might have meant nothing, yet each time it had sent a surge to his heart, leaping as it had the first time their eyes met. Only now it was an excitement, well, more excitement now. Then it had been some excitement but mostly fear and a confused survival instinct.

He flushes red at the memory of Derek saying his name, and at the thought of what he must sound like now, and promptly he stops.

He waits in the dark all of a second before he manages to say it again, and it still feels wonderful to say, even though he hears Derek stifle a groan at his still being awake. Stiles almost smiles to himself –even in all the awkwardness, Derek’s annoyance is constant, and here the one familiarity he can glean comfort from.

“Derek, you’re awake, right?”

"N-" Derek began in a wrecked voice, cutting himself off at the letter as he betrayed himself with the one treacherous word.

Stiles glanced over at him, sitting up in bed. Derek remained perfectly still, turned just away from him. His eyes were closed a mite too tight, the sound of his breath nonexistent, as if he was holding it. Wow that was worse than Scott’s impression of sleep, which involved the fakest snore known to man and werewolf, and constantly peeking to see if Stiles looked convinced. He never did, but Stiles gave Scott credit for the eye movement because it could be passed off as an attempt towards imitating REM sleep. Derek got no credit for that act he was trying to pass off as sleep.

Besides, Derek obviously didn’t know himself very well. He had the softest snore, like a baby chainsaw, which was presently lacking. Stiles often imagined it feebly trying to start between mumbles. Some nights Stiles pretended to himself that Derek would make a good lumberjack with his baby chainsaw snore. After all, he looked the part, and he lived in the woods. It made total sense.

But now Derek was just a werewolf who was bad at faking sleep.

“Derek,” Stiles said again, reaching over to shake him. Derek didn’t bat (or open) an eye. He grumbled, but remained motionless, letting Stiles know he didn’t take him seriously.

“Derek!” Stiles snapped, louder now, kicking Derek through the pillow wall. The pillows did less cushioning the blow to Derek’s back and more to Stile’s foot from hitting Derek. It still hurt though.

“Derek, you still asleep?” he snaps, massaging his foot.

Derek grumbles into his pillow, making phony motions to suggest he was only just then waking up. He glares at Stiles, probably the first time they’ve made eye contact while in bed. If you don’t count the half-awake one that started the whole silent treatment. “So you wake me up to ask that?”

Stiles had a great sudden need to kick Derek off the edge of the bed.

“Oh ho, not even my dad’s buying that,” Stiles hissed at Derek, which earns _him_ a kick under the sheets after Derek sits up in alarm to glance at the door. Stiles rolls away from him, cackling, until he teeters on the edge of the bed. Derek shoves a pillow in his face.

Great. Derek was awake. They were both awake. Now what.

Stiles took in a deep breath, and let it out into the pillow before sitting up again. “Sourwolf, we need to talk.”

Derek harrumphed like he wasn’t planning on saying anything, looking pointedly not at Stiles.

“For one,” Stiles pressed on, not letting Derek’s cold (though still impeccably hot, goddamit) shoulders thwart him again, “Who said you could sleep in my bed?”

Derek snapped around to him, a glint of icy blue in his eyes. No big deal. Just getting a werewolf angry at him in bed, all he’s got to protect himself is a pillow, which, oh, is wonderful for hiding any arousal he might possibly be getting from the danger. He thinks briefly he should probably talk to a therapist or someone about his lack of survival initiative and his boner for Der-, no, _danger_. Well, Derek too, but he’s not going to tell a doctor about Derek.

“It was implied!” Derek insists once he’s taken a couple breaths and gotten the blue out of his eyes. Stiles crosses his arms over his chest, letting the pillow sit comfortably in his lap. He meets Derek’s eyes impassively.

“Uh-huh, I don’t even remember letting you in my room.”

Derek gestures wildly, grasping in the air for word to express his frustration. “It, it was, —you! You left the window open! You left blankets and a sleeping bag out!”

Aw. He should see the way his face lights up all happy-still-angry-though when he thinks he’s found an argument against Stiles.

“Uh-huh. So? Who said you could get in my bed? That’s kinda rape-y, don’t ya think?”

“You let me! You never said anything against it, you left it open, you practically invited me in!”

“Doubt it. You’re creepy Derek Hale.”

“Yeah, and you’ve been leaving me breakfast out almost every morning-!” he snapped, brushing right past the fact he had just agreed he was creepy. Stiles could barely keep the smile out of his voice, but he pinched his skin to keep a straight face. Stiles crosses his arms over his chest again, tilting his head to expose the bruises just starting to form on his neck. Derek’s eyes widened, and his higher brain functions seemed to fizzle out while looking at it until Stiles defended childishly, and his eyes snapped back to Stiles:

“Yeah, well, that could be for Scott. You wouldn’t know because you never talk to me.”

“You don’t do that for Scott,” Derek growled from the bottom of his throat, almost predatorily, a glimmer of red reaching his eyes, and ok Stiles’ heartbeat jumped at that and Derek heard it. He knows because a smile threatens to tug at the corner of Derek’s mouth, making him look almost proud when he says that.

“I could,” Stiles suggests, and he feels that he’s acting like Lydia when she’s arguing with Jackson. Just a little weird, but he sees now how she seems to win all the time.

“But you wouldn’t, because Scott’s a _friend_ ,” Derek says, shaking his head a little, a smirk persuading his expression, and oh, he hasn’t broken eye contact this whole time. Thank god for the pillow.

“Oh great, so I’ve been sharing my bed with a stranger then?” Stiles baits him, “I’d hoped to wait till college for that.”

Derek growls, taking it, snapping, “I’m not saying that! I’m saying we’re closer than friends, it’s not just friendship, it’s—”

“Romantic?” Stiles suggests under his breath, to which Derek agreed in a snap before he had finished processing the word. He looked up, face struck silent and unreadable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Perhaps if Derek had it in him to be more suave, or maybe if he just wasn’t such an emotionally stunted and incapable werewolf, he might have let the moment take over, let it play out as it should have…” READ: IF THE AUTHOR HADN’T BEEN LAZY AND THOUGHT ‘WOW, THAT LOOKS LIKE A GOOD CLIFFHANGER, IMMA STOP THERE”


	6. Chapter 6

Stiles has stopped talking in his sleep.

He still does, some nights, but it's much less often, in more murmurs and slurred words that barely let Derek in, and he's not sure how to feel about that. It's become so quiet at night he wakes at the slightest sound. The lack of words leaves him tossing and turning, waiting for their soft presence to guide him to sleep like a lullaby. Regardless, he puts the pillows in place. This is what he wanted, wasn't it? For Stiles to be quiet and let him rest in peace.

But the dreams haven't stopped happening, and they've been getting worse.

And by "worse" he means they make him happier than ever and leave him achingly alone when he wakes.

The dreams are always too realistic, and yet never enough. Like all dreams, everything seems utterly normal, that he would greet Stiles with a kiss and continue to talk to him without bickering, nothing unusual in how Stiles climbed into his lap to run his teeth along Derek's jawline, completely ordinary that he would wake up to see Stiles beside him.

 Too often the dreams are of the nights only a few weeks ago, where he's laying down on his side, so much closer to the middle, closer to Stiles than he allows himself now. The wall isn't there and he's smiling, listening to Stiles dream aloud. The only difference in his dreams and the nights from a few weeks prior, is that in his dreams he's not afraid to reach out to touch Stiles' face, to thread his fingers through his hair, to haul him bodily onto his side of the mattress and bury his face against Stiles’ shoulder. Longing for an extension of what he had for a handful of the shortest seconds, and he’s not sure whether he wishes he had been awake enough then so that now he could recall every detail, material for when he indulges in wanton fantasies, or that he already remembers too much.

If only he had utterly fucked everything up.

He can remember it and it haunts his waking moments like a nightmare he just woke from, only the horror doesn’t fade it, no it grows with ever second he spends thinking and agonizing over how he completely, utterly, and totally fucked everything up.

He remembers looking up to see Stiles’ eyes, open and honest and waiting ever so hopefully, eagerly anticipating the next few seconds, biting his lips as if he were preparing himself to savor this moment so he could dream about it later, so that when he was alone he could remember it and blush, and try not to smile too much in case anyone caught him grinning like an idiot.

Perhaps if Derek had it in him to be more suave, or maybe if he just wasn’t such an emotionally stunted and incapable werewolf, he might have let the moment take over, let it play out as it should have, he could have just moved in and kissed Stiles the way he was aching to. He could have looked away and nodded and let Stiles pull closer to him. He should have done anything else. Hell, he could have probably just sat there and done nothing at all and it probably would have turned out better than this.

Of course, he froze, unable to think. He knew those eyes. Those were Stiles’ “Lydia” eyes.

But he wasn't looking at Lydia. She wasn't there, neither wedged between the two of them, nor in Derek’s spot, no matter how many times Stiles had probably fantasized her there.

He was looking at Derek, with such adoration and hopefulness waiting on that moment.  That wasn't his Lydia Martin face, that was a ‘I'm so in love with you, wow just look at you’ face.  

That moment that Derek was cornered, and did as he always had, putting on an angry exterior and shoving affection aside.

“In your dreams, Stilinski,” he had snapped, shoving Stiles over roughly.

“I just … I just wanted to …” Stiles trailed off, before he rolled over in bed away from Derek. The bed felt a lot colder than it had before. They laid in bed for hours, and he could feel Stiles' restlessness inches from him, and he recoiled from it, knowing he was the cause of it.

Neither of them got much sleep after that, and neither of them said anything. Even with Stiles inches from him, he felt incredibly alone, and was left to wrestle with his regret. The bed feels cold and almost as empty as his own with stiles curling up in the corner, trying to stay as far away from Derek.

That night they said nothing more, and in the day it was quiet too. He avoided Stiles even more, speaking tersely to him without endearment or kindness. He ceased stopping by Stiles’ house, and did not text him when he was bored. He slept by himself, curled up on the edge of the mattress.

At first, Stiles pursued and pestered him. He showed up at the burned shell of the Hale House, he abused his copy of the key to Derek’s apartment, he wandered in the woods and by the traincar. He called emergency pack meetings to only Derek, and ambushed him at real pack meetings. Boyd, Erica and Isaac visited Derek with worn faces, telling him that Stiles had been interrogating them about finding Derek. Whenever Stiles caught sight of Derek in public, he chased after him, sometimes shouting words Derek couldn’t let himself listen to. He has to uproot his routine to avoid him, but he does it anyway because he can’t face him. Perhaps if he avoids it long enough, they’ll forget all about it. Perhaps the distance he puts between them will diminish his affections and tire out Stiles’ stubbornness.

Stiles tries and tries to catch him and communicate, but he’s stopped talking in his sleep.

Derek knows because he stops by, looking in Stiles’ window just to make sure he’s alright. That’s all it is, he tells himself, only to make sure he’s alright.

Okay he’s lying to himself.

For all his running away he keeps running back here, because this is where he’ll always come to, to Stiles.

He’s perched on the roof, resting on his heels to peek in the windows, which are flung wide open despite the ever approaching onslaught of winter. Even in the summer they were only ever open a crack for Derek.

The window blows and he catches Stiles’ scent in it, fresh and heady, taking hold of his attention that he wants to close his eyes and just bury himself in it. Over the months his clothes had picked up Stiles’ scent, but by each passing night it smelled less and less like him.

Stiles no longer mumbles in his sleep, or cries out in the night, and Derek wonder to himself why he ever did this to either of them. It took him longer than it should have to realize that he's no longer going there for shelter or just to check on him, but to be near Stiles, because even though he can’t be with him, this is all of him he can get.

Why had it makes sense to him, to never tell Stiles? To be stoic, to pretend he was incapable of emotion? Why was it that to never admit one’s feelings of affection for another seemed the wiser path? Why was it so, when so often he wanted to hold Stiles and kiss him, to feel his cheek against his own, the smooth skin against rough, to press mouths, to bite and explore and touch? That whenever they exchanged texts, swapping witty banters for a few brief moments he smiled, and he was unable to will it away until some hours later? That although he never talked much, all he only wanted to listen to Stiles ramble on and on, and even that alone could make him immensely happy? That he replayed their one-sided conversations in his head, and pretended he had joined in, that in boredom his thoughts always jumped to something he could say to Stiles?

Why was the solution so difficult to take charge of, to execute, even when opportunity had presented itself on a plate with an apple in its mouth?

How easily it would have been solved with the simple act of _telling him_. How happiness seemed so reachable with the solution, _tell him_. But it was so hard to voice the words. During the day, he could not even draft a text to send, to attempt to make amends. He knew the words, there were so few and so easy to pronounce, no difficult diction or grammar to stumble over, how could they be so difficult to say? The days leading up to that horrible moment where he fucked everything up, he had been scared the words might accidentally roll off his tongue, he would be unable to catch himself and Stiles would hear him, and it would have been a terrible disaster. In that horrible moment he regretted the most these days, where Stiles, _damn him for tricking him into nearly saying it-!_ he felt that that fear had been justified at the time.

Yet now it seemed impossible to say them again. He had no idea how to explain his affections, even when he was given the words. He could have been given a script and he would still find it impossible to wrench he words from his throat. He never knows how he’ll say it to Stiles, how he’ll ever repair this.

Before he’s even really conscious of it, he’s slipped in through the window by his practiced routine, approaching the bed in the dark without a sound.

If Stiles were awake, and on better terms with him, Derek’s sure that Stiles would be telling just how creepy he’s being. He can’t feel it and it discomforts him enough for him to tell himself he’ll leave in just a moment; he just needs this moment to pretend everything is back to the way it used to be, and is the way it could have been.

Stiles looks so peaceful here, sprawled out and tangled up in the sheets. His shirt is pulled up, exposing his stomach with his hand laying so easily on it, a few fingers straying just under the band of his boxers. The last couple of weeks, all Derek has seen of his face was fleeting glimpses, tainted by stress and strain, and momentary panic as Derek tried to escape. But here, there’s none of that.

The moon is wide and opulent behind him, pale reflected light washing the room. His face is relaxed, and he looks, Derek realizes, much older than he when they first met. Of course he had noticed him age over the past couple years, watched him grow into his own lengthy limbs and better fill out his scrawny figure, and denied to himself his fascination with the way the baby fat had melted him his face to show those cheekbones and that more angled jaw. The moles stayed, an interesting constant, stars he had used to guide him through the years.

Stiles sighs, shifting in his sleep and groaning. Derek should have been out the window in a second, but already he’s too attached; he wonders if he could even move an inch away now. He pries his eyes away from Stiles’, forcing himself to leave.

When Stiles moans his name he knows he can’t.

He’s back by Stiles’ side in an instant, hanging on every noise as Stiles is sleep-mumbling out. Derek wants to hold him and clasp his hands in his, to crawl under the sheets with him and stay the night.

“Derek. Deeeeeeeeeee-rek. Hmmhmph. Miss you. Miss it,” Stiles is saying, half burying his face in his pillow, his fingers dipping lower beneath the waistband of his boxers as he says Derek’s name.

“-I miss it too,” Derek says softly before he realizes. “I miss ... whatever it was that we had.” 

He turns his back to stiles, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I miss ... you.” He runs a hand through his hair self-consciously, scratching at his neck. He laughs a little, unable to think, yet the words come without too much thought. The words that had been stuck in his throat are pouring out.

“You let me in without question and I ... I couldn't do the same for you. And I don't know how to fix that now.” He shifted on the bed uneasily.

“No. No, don't go. You don't need to go yet,” Stiles moans in his sleep. He sounds weak and wounded and his voice becomes terribly small and begging. “ _Stay_.”

Derek reaches over and touches his cheek; it’s all he can do to not scoop him up into his arms and reassure him he’ll never leave again after hearing his voice like that, but it pains him to think that once he wakes up things will go back to their regular animosity. He brushes a thumb along the skin to reassure one of them. “I'm not going anywhere. I'll stay with you, don't worry.”

Even though asleep, Stiles seemed to relax at that, settling further into his pillow.

“I need you,” he mumbled after a minute, mostly talking into the pillow. “So much. I need-…I need…”

“I know. If… if you didn't need me, I don't know what I’d do. I’d be lost.” He chuckles at that because he can’t believe how true it is.

“If only you knew. How much I need you. Not-"

"Not just for a place to stay,” Derek whispers, touching Stiles’ hand, the one that’s not on his stomach. “Being around you makes me, well, annoyed, but I need that. To be around you, I mean, not annoyed. Though you are annoying.” He’s rambling. Stiles has rubbed off on him, and he can’t bring himself to care.

“And when I look at you, you're just so peaceful when you're asleep... That's kind of creepy when I think about it,” Derek says, thinking aloud.

Stiles lets out a soft snore which Derek takes as some subconscious ‘ _yeah that really is_ ’. He smiles and it crinkles his eyes.

“I just wish it wasn't so hard for me to be like this when we're awake. I don't know how we ended up like that. Sometimes it’s like we hate each other so much we might as well be in love,” his voice is growing thick, his throat closing up in a way that feels stupidly like crying. He lets of Stiles’ hand, turning away from him, burying his face in his hands. He needs to say this now because he might never get the chance again.

“Good thing you're asleep because I feel like an idiot, saying this. We haven’t even really gotten to ‘I don’t hate you’,” he mostly mumbles to himself. He takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. There they are, the words stuck in his throat that have been blocking everything else he needed to say. He thinks that if they never work things out while awake, if they never talk again face to face and fully conscious, at least he’ll have said this here and now. Perhaps then, if he has to, he’ll be able to forgive himself and move on.

“But I think I might I love you,” he manages at last, directing the words to nothing, staring only at the darkened room. It’s quiet and he lets himself take in a few relaxed breaths.

“Hold the phone.” Stiles voice says from behind him.

Derek turns around so fast he nearly falls off the bed. There’s Stiles, sitting upright looking a little too alert for someone supposedly just asleep.

“Dude,” he says, very much awake and eyes devious with an "I told you so" wickedly waiting in his grin. Derek can feel the color drain from his face.

What.

What.

 _What_.

Stiles _pretends_ to talk in his sleep.

 “God, it took _months_ of that shit to get you to say that and _oh my god_ , you were never actually going to tell me to my face, were you?” Stiles is saying, scooting over to Derek, who is somewhat catatonic, and still processing the last few seconds while Stiles casually links his ankles around Derek’s waist, as if they’ve been sleeping together for months.

Well, they kind of have.

“Hell, that really freaked me out when you suddenly hated me. Don’t scare me like that again,” Stiles says, batting him gently upside the head. Derek’s still vaguely catatonic. “I mean, I knew you had feelings for me, but _come on_ , Derek.”

He can’t bring himself to be angry with Stiles grinning at him like an idiot, touching his face and nuzzling his neck and pressing fully against his back and _hello_.

His voice is hoarse as he goes to speak. “You knew?”

Stiles rolls his eyes and drapes his arms over Derek’s shoulders. “Derek, for fuck's sake we sleep together every night. You think I wouldn't notice that? We’re half married already.” Stiles blushes at that last part, but he shrugs it off.

Derek tries to say something, but his mind is buzzing with so many questions and with a bit of residual shock he can’t figure out what to say or ask first. He’s not ever sure he’s really there. Stiles pulls on him, coaxing him into laying down on the bed together. Stiles shifts around a bit, curling up against Derek and tangling his lanky legs with Derek’s the way it should be. It feels right. Stiles settles back on his side, looking at Derek.

Finally Derek manages, “Why?” He’s not sure how to phrase it, but he think Stiles gets it.

He shrugs and looks a little embarrassed, flushing under the moonlight. “Because I needed to see you smile again. And you've been poutier than usual since the pillow-wall of Jericho.”

Derek swallows. He stutters, and he’s no longer sure of how to say much of anything. “Is this, are you forgiving me-?”

Stiles shushes him with many fingers pressed against his mouth. “You're there when I wake up. Every day, no exceptions. Unless you're making breakfast."

Derek nods, because it’s all he can manage now, and Stiles leans forward to kiss him. It’s sweet and honest, and its much less dirty than Derek would have thought Stiles would kiss, but right now it’s enough. 


End file.
